


'cause nothing ever comes without a change

by shinelikestars



Category: Santa Clarita Diet (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Little bit of Fluff, Little bit of angst, maybe a little bit of everything?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 10:47:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15604632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinelikestars/pseuds/shinelikestars
Summary: the first time abby hammond meets eric bemis, she's struck by how impossibly awkward he is.the second time they meet, that hasn't changed. but he's definitely an impressive connoisseur of all things nerd culture.(a reflection on the development of abby and eric's relationship over time)





	'cause nothing ever comes without a change

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from "Welcome To Your Life" by Grouplove

The first time Abby meets Eric Bemis, all she can think about is how hopelessly awkward he is.

 

Lisa and Dan move to the neighborhood a few weeks after Abby’s twelfth birthday. Her mom drags her over with a poorly-done casserole and a bottle of wine (cheap, but deceptively expensive in appearance) to commemorate their arrival. She knows her mom hates small talk and forced socialization – funny, that she’d chosen to become a realtor – but does it out of some sense of neighborly obligation.

 

She’d much rather stay back and hang out with her dad, watch some crappy TV or something, but her mom insists, dangling the promise of One Direction tickets over her head. Abby relents, but she makes sure to wear her crappiest pair of Converse, the ones her mom hates because they’re so scuffed and beaten-up from years of use. Her mom will be _extra_ mad this time, because she just got a new pair for her birthday, but she won’t stay mad for long. By now, she’s learned to brush off Abby’s tiny acts of rebellion with a tight smile and, later, a good laugh.

 

Abby’s first impression of Lisa Palmer is that she is trying _way_ too hard. There’s a point where her practiced nonchalance turns into an obvious performance, and Abby feels sorry for her mom, who is so clearly uncomfortable with this loud, energetic woman who cracks sex jokes like nobody’s business. Still, Lisa is nice enough, and Abby can tell that underneath all the dirty humor, she really just wants to be liked. Can’t blame her for that.

 

Dan Palmer is a dick. That’s all Abby has to say about that.

 

They get invited in, in spite of Dan’s admirable protesting, and Lisa cracks open the bottle of her wine with her mom. Dan offers to show Abby his gun collection – he’s the first person she’s ever encountered in Santa Clarita with an NRA membership – but she takes a hard pass. Assholes and deadly weapons are almost never a good combination; she’s old enough to know that much.

 

Halfway through her second glass of pinot noir (which only takes Lisa about ten minutes, since she apparently downs her wine like it’s a shot of cheap tequila – fair, Abby supposes), Lisa apparently comes to some sort of great realization, because she sets down her wineglass and lets out a dramatic gasp. “Oh my god, I just realized you haven’t met my son yet!” she exclaims. Abby resists the urge to roll her eyes. She has a feeling she knows where this is going.

 

“Eric, put it away and get down here!” Lisa shouts, cupping her hands around her mouth for added effect. Dan looks positively murderous. This is the first time Abby has empathized with him all evening.

 

There’s a clatter as someone comes down the stairs and, evidently, trips. Abby thinks she hears some sort of muttered curse, but Lisa is already chatting her mom’s ear off again, so she can’t be sure. The cruel smirk spreading across Dan’s face confirms her suspicion that this Eric guy is probably some sort of a klutz, though.

 

Her first impression of Eric Bemis is that he is awkward. It’s obvious, in the way he blushes bright red when his eyes land on her, and how he almost trips over himself again on his way over to the table.

 

Her second impression of Eric is that he’s scared. Dan claps him on the back as he walks over to his mom, and Eric instantly hunches in on himself, like he wants to become as small as possible. It makes Abby cringe.

 

“Eric,” Lisa says, all grandiose as she gestures across the table at her, “this is Abby. She lives next door, and – what grade are you in?”

 

“I’m in sixth,” she mumbles. Her mom nudges at her from under the table, and Abby forces herself to speak up. “I’m in sixth,” she repeats. “At Santa Clarita Middle School.”

 

Lisa’s grin is so wide, it’s a wonder that her face doesn’t split in half. “See, Eric? You guys will be in the same class! Maybe you can go out on a daaate,” she sing-songs. Abby has the sudden, desperate urge to disappear into the floorboards.

 

Eric turns an impressive shade of red. “Mom, you don’t have to try to set me up with every new girl I meet,” he mutters. Lisa just beams at him like she’s earned a fucking Nobel Peace Prize. If Abby hadn’t just been the subject of said attempted set-up, she would be enjoying the free entertainment of their bizarre mother-son dynamic.

 

“Lisa, come on,” Dan interjects, thank God. “Eric hasn’t even been through fuckin’ puberty yet. Just look at him, he’s as feminine as that dumbass Santa Monica cop down the road. No sane girl is gonna want him.”

 

Abby’s brief flash of gratefulness disappears as quickly as it came. Her mother’s eyes are as wide as dinner plates. Poor Eric looks like he wants to die.  “Dan, you know that’s not true, remember our appointment with Dr. Hampstead before we moved—” Lisa begins. Abby coughs loudly, the secret signal she’s always had with her mom that she needs to get the _hell_ out of here.

 

“Lisa, Dan, _Eric_ , it’s been so great meeting you all, but I’m afraid we’ll have to go now,” her mom interrupts, injecting a heavy dose of Suburban Realtor Charm into her voice. “Abby has, um, an early bedtime this week. She’s grounded.”

 

Abby sends her mom a death glare. Dan raises a brow. “It’s six o’clock,” he points out.

 

Her mother shrugs. “Well, we just read a new parenting book about fixing your child’s sleep cycle – it’s _very_ insightful, I’ll bring you a copy, Lisa – and we think that’s what’ll work best for Abby. Anyway, we’ll see you around!”

 

They’re out the door before either Palmer has a chance to respond, and Abby recounts the whole uncomfortable thing to her dad over a bowl of Cheerios the next morning. She tells him how she wishes she could just wipe the whole thing from her memory, _that’s_ how bad it had been.

 

But there’s one part that Abby can’t seem to forget about, that nags at her for weeks after their eventful evening with the new neighbors.

 

The look on Eric’s face as she and her mom had made their escape. Like he was sad or something.

 

How stupid.

 

At least, that’s what she tells herself when she tries to brush it off.

 

••••

Over the next four years, she and Eric don’t really talk. Sure, they suffer through the occasional meaningless conversation, little questions about homework or upcoming tests in the classes they share, but never anything of any real substance.

 

Abby’s fine with that. Eric is a bit of a nerd – well, that’s probably an understatement. He’s a _huge_ nerd, and she honestly doesn’t understand half of the things that come out of his mouth. Not that she has a problem with that, but he’s just never been in any of her friend groups. And middle school sucks, anyway. There’s no disputing that.

 

High school is a bit more tolerable. She takes a few AP classes here and there, mostly the easier ones, like Psychology and Human Geography, because her mom thinks it’ll make her look better to colleges. Abby couldn’t care less about college, but she kind of enjoys the challenge, though she’d never admit that. People tend to look at her and assume that she doesn’t have much to contribute, so she likes proving them wrong. It feels good.

 

But then she turns sixteen, and her mom starts eating people, and _everything_ starts to feel so wrong.

 

And Eric, he’s just suddenly _there_ again, like keeping a secret that could very well send all of them to prison is no big deal, like he’s not doing more for Abby and her family than anyone’s ever done before.

 

It is so fucking confusing that Abby doesn’t even know where to start.

 

The first time Abby has a meaningful conversation with Eric Bemis, she is covered in dirt and a speck of something that might be Gary West’s small intestine, and she is trying very hard not to freak out.

 

They’re driving back to Abby’s house, Eric’s hands gripping the steering wheel of Dan’s Mustang so tightly that his fingers are turning white. It’s somewhere around 11 o’clock at night, but her parents have insisted on staying back a little, so the neighbors don’t get suspicious if they all arrive home at once. Eric hadn’t hesitated to volunteer to leave first. Nobody’s particularly fond of hanging out next to a dead body, buried or not. Well, maybe her mom, but certainly not anyone else involved.

 

She can feel her breath getting shaky, and she’s making a valiant effort to hide that from Eric. She is Abby Hammond, for fuck’s sake. She doesn’t get scared, and she definitely doesn’t freak out about problems she didn’t cause.

 

But that’s the thing. She is totally, _totally_ freaking out, and she can’t ignore that. Judging by the way Eric keeps glancing over at her nervously, it’s becoming pretty apparent to the both of them. 

 

Then, he spits it out: “How’re you holding up?” A nervous chuckle. “I mean, if I’d seen Dan and _my_ mom bury someone they ate, I’d be pretty freaked out.”

 

Eric’s not very good at this comforting thing yet, but Abby sends a grateful look his way for his troubles. “It’s not even really the eating people thing, I guess. That’d be pretty metal or whatever, if it wasn’t illegal.” She takes a deep breath. “It’s more that… she’s so _different_. She’s nothing like the mom I had two weeks ago, and part of me thinks it’s kinda cool, but most of me really just thinks it’s weird. And scary. And, in most instances, pretty concerning.” 

 

Eric turns onto the main road, and he seems deep in thought for a second, like he’s heavily considering what she’s just said. Or maybe he’s having a silent panic attack of his own, which is entirely plausible, seeing as it’s now up to him to cover up his neighbors’ various crimes if he also doesn’t want to be charged as an accessory to murder.

 

 _God_ , life was so much easier two weeks ago.

 

“Look, if I know anything about your mom, it’s that she’s pretty badass,” Eric says. He kind of stumbles over the curse, and Abby has to hold back a laugh. “She and your dad, they seem like they can handle anything. So I don’t think you have to worry, Abby.”

 

It’s the first mildly reassuring thing she’s heard all week, and in spite of herself, Abby can feel a smile tugging at her lips. “Thanks.”

 

“Besides, she’s not showing any signs of going feral yet, so I’d say that’s a good thing!” Eric adds.

 

The smile disappears from Abby’s face. Eric means well, but he’s scarily good at ruining a moment.

 

Eric must realize his misstep, because he falls all over himself trying to remedy it. “Not that you should worried about that! We have no reason to believe that your mom will go feral any time soon! And if she does start to turn feral, we have at least a few days to figure it out, so lots of cushion—”

 

He evidently also realizes that he’s only digging himself deeper, as he cuts himself off abruptly after looking over at Abby. She hopes the discomfort is written all over her face. Eric obviously doesn’t do well with subtler cues.

 

“I’m sorry,” he sighs. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly accustomed to reassuring people. I usually only have to let Dan insult me a couple times before he feels better, and if I give my mom a glass of wine and a magazine she generally stops caring, so – not really used to this.”

 

“It’s okay,” she says, the mention of Eric’s parents inducing cringeworthy flashbacks to their first introduction four years ago. “It’s not your job to make me feel better. You didn’t ask to be involved in any of this.”

 

“I know,” Eric insists. “But – I just want you to know that I’m here for you, Abby. Really.”

 

He pulls up to her house, and the moment is cut short.

 

But when Abby can’t sleep that night, she can’t help herself from replaying it in her head, over and over. 

 

It’s funny how outside of the moment, Eric’s words become infinitely more comforting.

••••

Abby hates how fake everything has become. The thing about having realtors for parents is that they’re supposed to leave all the fake niceties behind at work, but lately, it feels like they’ve been bringing them home more and more often.

 

It’s so exhausting. She’s not a little kid anymore. She’s not _blind_ ; do they really think they’re going to be able to hide the fact that her mom is fucking murdering people from her?

 

Apparently, they do, because they all sit around the dinner table and smile at each other while Abby pretends she doesn’t know her mom’s eating human flesh instead of raw beef.

 

She does her best to self-destruct, half enjoying the fun of it, half hoping her mom will actually start to resemble her old self and _do_ something about it. She skips school. She teargasses Sarah’s ex-boyfriend. She uses every curse word in the book around her parents, if only to get their attention and know that they’ve got something other than cannibalism on their minds.

 

It doesn’t work. It doesn’t fucking work, and Abby is terrified.

 

After she catches her parents blatantly planning their next murder in the Range Rover, she’s had enough. She storms into Eric’s room, thankful that neither Lisa or Dan are home, and lets every single bad feeling she’s had over the past few days spew out.

 

Eric tells her that they love her, that they’re trying to protect her. She’s halfway through her “You shouldn’t lie to people you love” speech when he cuts her off with a kiss.

 

Abby can’t identify any certain feeling about the situation other than the sheer awkwardness of it. She knows that she wants to deny it when he claims she’s not interested in him. She knows that even if she were to like him, this would _never_ be anything like the right time. She knows that she barely knows him.

 

That’s about it.

 

He leaves her with a bizarre anecdote about peeing in a Cowardly Lion costume, which, from what she can tell, is so very Eric but so very uncomfortable to hear.

 

She wishes that she could pinpoint one fucking thing in her life that’s certain right now.

 

She’s never been the journal-writing type, and music never came naturally to her like it did for her dad. Having no outlet for her emotions other than other people is more frustrating than she knows how to explain, especially when, if she thinks about it, her circle of confidantes has really been narrowed down to one person as of late. Eric, of course. Eric, because he hates his family and has developed some strange attachment to hers. Eric, because he occasionally has half a clue as to what’s going on in her mom’s mind, which is more than Abby can ever say. Eric, because he takes all the bad parts and acts like they don’t matter to him, a feat that is definitely beyond Abby’s comprehension.

 

But there’s also a lot about her relationship with Eric that doesn’t make sense. The kiss, for example – Abby doesn’t buy Eric’s piss-poor excuse for it, not one bit. All those weird comments Lisa makes about the time they spend together, off-handed remarks that have started to seem like they’re beyond the scope of just normal Lisa Palmer humiliation. And, naturally, what’s the most pressing concern of all, in Abby’s mind: the way they’d bonded so quickly, how she’d spilled all of her secrets to him over the span of just a few weeks, as though it was nothing.

 

It doesn’t make sense. Hell, it had taken her a _year_ to tell Sarah what her fucking favorite color was. She doesn’t open up to people like that, especially not people who, in their four years of knowing each other, she’d exchanged maybe fifty words with. It’s not like her. It’s not normal, and though nothing is normal in her life anymore, it nags at a part of Abby that her mom’s new carnivorous diet doesn’t quite reach.

 

But things are probably never going to be normal again.

 

And the scary thing is, Abby’s no longer sure that she could handle it if they were. At least not where Eric is involved.

 

••••

The second time Abby kisses Eric Bemis, she is trying very hard to keep it all together.

 

Her family is on the verge of destruction, a car ride away from a healthy helping of felonies, and she knows she will have to be the strong one. She has to brush it all off with a laugh and a funny anecdote about her middle-school boy band obsession, because her parents are literally fighting about which one of them gets to be _arrested_ , and everything is so fucked up right now. She’s pretty sure her parents are going to want to ship her off to live with fucking Aunt Kathy in Phoenix. But she’s good at winning arguments, and assuming she does an okay job of threatening her parents with utter misery, at least she’ll be on the run with the people she loves, even if it makes her a fugitive.

 

God, being a fugitive at sixteen, though. She’s never been opposed to a good dose of teenage rebellion, but this feels like a little much.

 

The moment she realizes that everything is going to fall apart, she drags Eric into his room like both of their lives depend on it (though really only hers does) and shuts the door, if only so she won’t risk Lisa listening in. She’s grown to like Eric’s mom, but the unexpected makeover Lisa had given her was definitely the cap on the amount of vulnerability Abby’s willing to show in front of her. Anything more would really just be gross.

 

He asks her what’s up, and she explains her predicament, every word more painful than the last. She insists that they’re going to keep knowing each other, that this will just be a temporary break in their fucked-up friendship, but a part of her knows she must be lying, and it adds a desperate tinge to her tone that Abby hates.

 

She doesn’t like feeling desperate, or backed into a corner, or any of the million awful emotions she’s feeling right now. But this sucks, this really fucking _sucks_ , her having to play a terrible game of “Run From the Felony” when they’ve just gotten to know each other.

 

It’s not fair. It really isn’t. But what about any of this _has_ been fair?

 

And then, because she’s apparently decided to turn her Category 5 emotional hurricane into a goddamn Category 11, she suggests that they kiss. Because it feels right, it feels like she can’t leave him without _something_ , and no matter his brief attempt to rationalize it away, they both know it’s what they need.

 

She kisses Eric like she’s scared of it meaning too much.

 

He kisses her like he’s scared it won’t mean _enough_.

 

It’s not perfect – of course it won’t be, she’s terrified and he’s devastated and they both have no clue what this really means – but for them, for what they are, it works. It’s one of the few things Abby’s done lately that she doesn’t regret.

 

(Okay, stealing the motorcycle and the “Pussy Magnet” jacket had been pretty cool. But she thinks it’s probably gonna rank a little below this kiss.)

 

When they break apart, there’s a light in Eric’s eyes that tells her he’s come to some sort of realization, and her suspicion is proven correct when he declares he’ll blow up the fracking trailer for her.

 

And because it’s Eric, and she needs to push him a little, she doesn’t let him back out of it.

 

Who knows? Maybe she’ll come back in a few years and he’ll have become a full-blown enemy of the government.

 

(Okay, probably not. But there’s always wishful thinking.)

 

••••

The news that they no longer have to leave is one of the best things she could possibly hear, the news of a permanent cure for her mother being the only thing that might ever top that. She bursts into Eric’s room at break-neck speed, ignoring the palpable tension in the air and choosing to focus on the hilarious happiness of her staying.

 

When Eric asks if she wants to talk about the kiss, she brushes it off. She has no idea where they are, or at what point they might blur the line between “friendship” and “relationship,” and right now, she doesn’t care. She doesn’t _want_ to care. They’ve got a fracking trailer to blow up, and good news to celebrate, and there is absolutely no space in that to define their relationship.

 

And maybe it had been a bad idea, anyway. Maybe kissing him had been a product of her total emotional confusion, and not genuine feelings for Eric. Maybe, even if she does care about him as more than a friend, trying to pursue a relationship would just screw up the good thing they’ve got going. And why ruin that? Why risk losing the _only_ person her age who’s willing to accept that her mom murders bad people for food and that there may, on occasion, be a dead Nazi chilling in their fridge?

 

She can’t lose Eric, just like he’s said he can’t lose her. She experienced what it felt like to lose him once, when she was stuck in traffic and thought Ramona had killed him. Even now, she doesn’t have the emotional capacity to describe how terrible that had been.

 

So she’ll focus on the lighter things (or whatever the hell entails “lighter” for them), and she’ll pretend like they never kissed each other like the world was gonna end around them.

 

Because she can’t risk losing Eric.

 

No, it’s not just about can’t.

 

She _won’t_.


End file.
